Malawi in New York Times

Surprisingly there is not a single mention of the famine, but perhaps that is a good thing as people tune out when they hear about another "famine in Africa". Instead it talks about how Malawi is losing its forest, and how the loggers manage to survive with their sad profession:

"The problem is that we have nothing else to do," said Mr. Juma, a wiry 33-year-old with a neon green shirt tied around his bare waist, standing over the remains of the chopped-up masuku. "We have no money to raise our families. We have nowhere to run, nothing else to do. So we have to cut the trees to feed our families."

In few places do the dictates of modern environmentalism butt so painfully against economic reality as they do here in Malawi.

Two-thirds of the nation's 12 million people earn less than a dollar a day, according to the United Nations Human Development report. Nine-tenths of those two-thirds live in rural areas where both jobs and the odds of escaping poverty are nonexistent.


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2 Response to Malawi in New York Times

  1. Valerie says:

    Malawi and the famine are mentioned in the New York Times today:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/02/international/africa/02malawi.html?ex=1131598800&en=ff5a52fedca5ed68&ei=5070

  2. [...] te points out MSMs inability to articulate a full perspective of the world’s story. He is surprised by a New York Times article that focuses on deforestration but neglec [...]

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